Now, as we turn to the Scriptures together, let's begin with a moment of prayer that God would illumine his word to us and enable us to respond to it faithfully. Would you pray with me? Father, your first words in Scripture were, let there be light. You spoke and it was created, you commanded and it stood firm. Please speak into the darkness of our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. Our scripture this morning is from the book of Genesis, chapter 32, verses 22 to 31, though we'll be referring to these several chapters in the book more broadly. So this is as Jacob is returning from living with Laban in exile, returning and about to meet Esau, his brother. So beginning in verse 22. The same night, he, that is Jacob, arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his 11 children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and everything else that he had. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, let me go, for the day has broken. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. And he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob. Then he said, your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed. Then Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. But he said, why is it that you ask my name? And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, face of God, saying, for I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. The sun rose up upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. This is the word of the Lord. Now we've come to the part in the service where I'm confidently supposed to tell you about the truth that God is revealing to us today in his holy word. And this is a daunting enough task on any Sunday, but it is especially daunting when that divinely inspired authoritative word describes a night-long wrestling match between God and a human, and the human wins it. What is going on here? Why would the creator of all things, the one who formed the heavens and the earth, let one of his own creatures wrestle him to a draw? And then, as if that weren't strange enough, why does he declare him the winner, but only after putting his hip out of joint, leaving him disabled? Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed. What are we supposed to think of Jacob in this moment? Are we supposed to admire his great strength or at least his costly tenacity? And what about his demand for a blessing? Is blessing the kind of thing that a creature can wrest from the hands of his maker? And are we to imagine that Jacob has succeeded in doing that? The wrestling match between Jacob and God at the fort of the Jabbok is one of the most difficult and deeply perplexing passages in all of scripture. It's one of those texts that stubbornly, and I think helpfully, reminds us of how much we depend on God and on his grace as we struggle to understand his word. In that way, our wrestling with this scripture echoes the story that it tells. It's a comparison that many interpreters of the Bible have made before. God approaches us, God accosts us through his difficult word, and like Jacob, we have to hold on to him in the ensuing struggle in order to receive his blessing. So let's see if we can do that this morning. The anchor that needs to hold us in place as we wonder about what's going on here is the story's central defining event. And it may surprise you to hear that I'm not talking about the wrestling match. At its heart, this isn't the story of Jacob's wrestling. It is the story of Jacob's renaming. It's a story about Jacob's identity. This is the story of how Ya'aqov, the one who cheats, who grasps the akav, the heel, became someone else. Yisrael, a man who strives with God and whose strivings with God and other people will have a different meaning than they did when he was just Ya'aqov. Genesis 32 doesn't simply show us Jacob's striving, it shows us the conversion of Jacob's striving. And by implication, the conversion of our striving into a new way of relating to God and to other people. With that in mind, we can turn to the story itself. In the dark of night, Jacob is terrified. He has no idea what tomorrow holds. What he does know is that his brother Esau is coming to meet him along with 400 men, more than enough to kill Jacob and everyone with him. The man who usually could scheme his way out of any situation knows that this time there is no escape. He will have to face the brother whose heel he was born grasping, hence his name. The brother whom he cheated out of his birthright and whose blessing he stole from their blind father. The brother who was plotting to murder him last he heard. Jacob has no way of knowing whether or not the decades he spent away from home have changed anything. He has every reason to suspect they haven't. On the other hand, Jacob does know that God told him to return to the land of his father's. He knows that God has promised him immeasurable blessing, and he's already seen the beginnings of that blessing in the growth of his family and his possessions while he's been living in exile. In fact, he already reminded God of this in prayer earlier in this chapter, the longest prayer in the book of Genesis, actually. In that prayer, Jacob recognizes what he calls all the deeds of steadfast love that God has shown him up to this point, and all of the promises that ought to give him confidence as he pleads with God, please deliver me from the hand of my brother. Nicely done, Jacob. But that wasn't all Jacob did. He wasn't content to rely solely on God's promise. True to form, he had to do everything he could to stack the deck in his favor. So he came up with an elaborate plan to appease his brother. He took a bunch of his flocks and herds, divided them up into a long series of separate droves, and sent them off one by one, each as a gift to his brother. As it says in the verses just before our passage, for he thought I may appease him, literally propitiate his face with the present that goes ahead of me and afterward I will see his face. Perhaps he will accept me. By the time we get to the wrestling match the night beforehand, Jacob has already done everything he can to achieve the desired results with his brother. Like always, Jacob has his plans and the means at his disposal. Until now, that is. As he sends the rest of his possessions along with his family on over the fort of the Jabbok, the narrative strips away everything else that belongs to Jacob. Everything he's accumulated and acquired up to this point. Everything he has at his disposal until he is left alone. merely himself, just Jacob. Like he was when he first crossed over the river, fleeing from his brother all those years before, nothing but a staff in hand. He won't be reunited with all that he holds dear, nor will he see his brother until the events of this night are past. There's nothing left at this point to shield Jacob from reality. No leverage that he has available to him, just himself. It's like how you may feel when you're lying in bed at the end of the day and there's nothing left to distract you from simply being you. Who are you? What are you when you aren't tangled up in all that is yours? That may be a troubling question if you're like Jacob, if you're deeply insecure in the conviction that you are your own at the end of the day, and that only your desperate heel-grabbing is going to save you. But it's also in such places of darkness, nakedness, and honesty that God often chooses to meet us. And that's just what happens here to Jacob. It's in this aloneness, dark, devoid of all pretense, that Jacob suddenly finds himself under attack. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. In Hebrew, there's some wordplay going on here. Jacob, Ya'akov, the one who grasps the acave, the heel, now wrestles Ya'aveik at the ford of the Yabok. It may not be utterly essential for understanding what's happening, but it's one of those details that helps us see what a perfect setup we have here for a certain kind of story. A story where identity comes to expression and to fulfillment. A story in which Jacob's identity as the cheater, the heel grabber, will be most fully confirmed. When Jacob will prove his Jacobiness once and for all. Except that isn't what happens. The story surprises us. It doesn't confirm Jacob's identity as the heel-grabbing cheat. It disrupts this identity. Despite the wordplay, it isn't Yaakov, the heel-grabber, the cheater, who wins the wrestling match. It is Yisrael, Israel, the one who strives with God. Now, in and of itself, the name change maybe doesn't seem to tell us very much. It's not clear what it's giving us that we don't have already. He strives with God. But we already know that, and the name Jacob seems perfectly adequate for making the point, especially given the word plays we just observed. But this is why the timing of Jacob's renaming is so important. His striving results in victory and a new identity only after that striving has been radically transformed through the touch of his opponent. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip sockets and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. This touch reduces Jacob from holding his own in the wrestling match to simply holding on. I will not let you go until you bless me, he cries. At this point, we shouldn't be imagining Jacob with his opponent in a headlock. It's not that kind of victory. Think more of a child who's latched onto your leg and stubbornly clings to it as you lumber around trying to walk away. He's no less tenacious, no less dogged and determined than he was when he wrestled the stranger to a standstill. But his striving now is no longer the same. And that's because whereas Jacob strives in his ability, Israel strives in his inability, strives in his disability. Whereas Jacob strives to manipulate and to control the blessing for himself, Israel strives in a radical dependence on God to give the blessing. And it's in his disabled state that Jacob prevails. And he's declared the winner, receives a new name and a blessing, and then goes to meet his estranged brother. Paradoxically, Jacob prevails, Jacob wins, precisely when he finds himself most fully at the mercy of his enemy, at the mercy of God, whom he now recognizes, and the next day at the mercy of his brother, whom he wronged. And the mercy he now receives becomes the mark of a new identity. Why is this important? So important, in fact, that it becomes the name of God's covenant family, the children of Israel. Something momentous seems to be happening here. Something that goes beyond just improving Jacob's personality a bit, though that is badly needed. What this story shows us is God's determination to have a covenant partner who will truly rely on him for his blessing. God is determined to bless Jacob, but he's equally determined that the blessing will be something that Jacob receives, not something that he forcibly takes, like he did when he stole it from his older brother. I will not let you go unless you bless me. God could have appropriately replied, so you finally get how it works. God truly wishes to be prevailed upon. In a sense, conquered by his creatures. He positively desires to be accosted and laid hold of by us. In a sense, to be at our disposal. The victory God hands to his disabled opponent here isn't a joke. It isn't sarcasm. God wants Jacob to win. But he wants him to win as Israel. He doesn't want to be prevailed upon by the pride and self-sufficiency of his creatures. He will not be a tool in our project of trying to secure ourselves and possess ourselves in the specious freedom of our own autonomy. The creator wants his creatures to prevail upon him, to possess him, to conquer him with their needs. with their reliance on him and their demand for his care, with their recognition of him as the source and the provider of every good thing, as their father. And to get us to conquer him in that way, God first has to wage war on our addiction to ourselves. That's the story of the entire Bible and the story of humanity. It's the story of the human heart's unwillingness to accept the fact that its security depends on something beyond its control and manipulation. And that unwillingness, that resentment of our own contingency that's taken deep root in our nature breeds in us a deep anxiety. A desperate, growing fear and dread that things might not work out if we're not careful. If we don't do everything in our power to take hold of what we need. Anxiety like Jacob's as he faced the arrival of his brothers, his brother. Anxiety like yours and mine. It's the same anxiety that built the Tower of Babel, that enslaved the Israelites and drowned their children in the Nile. The same anxiety that refused to enter the Promised Land and wanted to go back to Egypt. It's the anxiety that lies beneath the surface of nearly any human evil imaginable. War, theft, racism, misogyny, abortion, human trafficking, drug addiction, mass incarceration, you name it. It's the anxiety that put Jesus on the cross. It's the anxiety that runs through the bloodstream of the entire human race throughout the ages back to that terrible moment in the garden when the serpent's voice whispered the lie that we can be like God without needing God. In that sense, God's wrestling with Jacob, unique and memorable though it may be, is really emblematic of something universal and disturbingly ordinary. It is a flashpoint in God's ongoing war with the voice of the serpent. It isn't ultimately Jacob whom God is attacking here. It is the voice of the serpent in Jacob, the hidden source of all Jacob's fears. Jacob has spent his whole life listening to that voice, and it has made him deeply insecure. It has also made him like the one to whom that voice belongs, a manipulative opportunist whose words bend the truth, who specializes in deceit. And yet unthinkably, it's precisely this man, this insecure, anxious, serpentine fool, whom God chooses to become the child of the promise, the heir of the covenant, and the individual who embodies and bears the name of his elect offspring, Israel. Not because of anything he deserved, not because of his achievement. Before he and Esau were even born, God told his mother, the older will serve the younger. But because of his amazing grace, God wages war on the enemy who holds the chosen one in his grasp. And he saves Jacob from that enemy by saving him from himself. It's the same for us. Your and my addiction to the voice of the serpent, our fear and anxiety rooted in the belief that we are our own, all of it is the target of God's redeeming grace. Even if at times God's grace to you and me feels more like an attack than a gift. Like God is accosting us, fighting us, at war with us, The truth is that in this conflict, only a touch that wounds each of us in some way will heal us. Only an act of God that awakens us to our radical need for him can save us. In the economy of grace, it is weakness that renews our strength to rely on God. Disability that enables us to reflect God's image most fully. When we can see that, the very things that we fear, the weaknesses and vulnerabilities that awaken all our anxiety, that tempt us to cheat and grasp, instead become a chorus of voices that truthfully remind us that we are not our own and that inexhaustible blessing is to be found only in the one to whom we belong, who cares and who provides. What a struggle it is for us to hear that message. I'm sure it is a struggle that continued for Jacob well after his encounter with God that night. We shouldn't imagine that the person who walked or limped away from this fight was completely changed all at once. For one thing, despite his new name, the narrator happily continues calling him Jacob in the next chapter and throughout the rest of the book of Genesis. The name Israel gets sprinkled in only toward the end. The same Jacob, whom we hope has finally learned his lesson here, will go on to ignore the dignity of his daughter, play favorites among his sons, If you actually look carefully in the very next passage, you'll notice that he lines up his children facing towards Esau from least favorite in the front to most favorite in the back. To his credit, he then goes out and stands in front of them. Even here, on the morning after his wrestling match, mistrust will remain between him and his brother. Still, for all that, something new has happened in Jacob. A shock of recognition has taken place as he realizes what has just happened. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, face of God, saying, I have seen God face to face and yet my life has been delivered. So Jacob is aware that his victory is not the result of his sufficiency, his ability, his strength. It is God's gift. And if Jacob's victory, if our victory, is ultimately God's gift, then the blessing that comes through that victory isn't truly ours. It must be a gift too. I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. Jacob's sudden awareness of God's grace in their encounter that night is what will make all the difference the next morning as he limps up to his brother in fear and trembling and suddenly finds himself being embraced rather than slain. Instead of seeing the success of his own efforts at control and manipulation, Jacob sees mercy. He sees grace. He sees the deliverance that he had prayed for and the undeserved forgiveness and generosity of his brother. And that's why Jacob can truthfully say to Esau, I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. It is when Jacob has seen the face of God, disabling him and delivering him, freeing him from himself and awakening him to his need for grace, that he is then able to recognize the same God in the face of others who show him grace. It is when we experience the grace of God disabling and delivering us, disarming our serpentine bent on control and domination, and telling us that we are secure in God's mercy and favor as we are, that we can begin to experience the world and others in it as conduits of God's generosity to us, not as plunder and pawns for us to control. Not only that, but we can begin to share with others the same grace and blessing that we have received when we recognize that it's not ours, but it's a gift. And maybe it's here that we see the greatest change that God's wrestling and wounding produced in Jacob. When his brother tries to return the now unnecessary gifts that Jacob had sent to win his favor, Jacob replies in chapter 33, Please take my blessing that is brought to you because God has dealt graciously with me and because I have enough. Take my blessing. God is gracious and I have enough. That statement is nothing less than the victory of God over the voice of the serpent. The voice that said, take the fruit. God is withholding and you don't have enough. That's the voice we've all heard throughout our lives. The voice that holds the world under its spell. But there's a different way to be human. Take my blessing. God is gracious. I have enough. The grasping fear behind Adam and Eve's failure has been trampled and subdued as their descendant opens wide his hands, both to receive what God eagerly wishes to give him and then to share it eagerly with others, even his worst enemy. That's what it means to be Israel. That's what it means to be the covenant family, the seed of Abraham who brings God's blessing to the nations. That's what it means to be the image of God, a wounded healer, a disabled man who powerfully wields the grace that he's been given. It is the victory that overcomes the world. It is God's victory in us over the voice of the serpent, God's triumph in our weakness and our triumph in God's grace. In the end, it is the victory of the cross where the disabled God himself, Israel's seed and Israel's king, crushed the head of Satan with healing wounds and open hands. Would you pray with me? God our Father, we give you thanks that you are the one who faithfully provides for us. That we are not our own, but are secure in your care and provision. We thank you for our forefather, according to your promise. For Jacob, whom you named Israel. for how you transformed his striving from the prideful attempt to control your blessings into a willingness to depend on your grace. And I pray that by faith, through the work of your spirit, you would transform our striving. Our strivings in this life in which we may trust you, that you are of the faithful God who provides for his children. And would you open our hearts in generosity towards others to wield the grace that you have given us. We ask this in the name of your son, our